The invention relates to straps for housing or managing a cannula and, more particularly, to a shoulder strap that forms a raceway for flexible medical tubing.
Such medical tubing includes without limitation the oxygen supply tubing that is typically utilized by patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who carry portable oxygen concentrators (or generators) and/or portable oxygen bottles (or tanks) by means of a plain conventional shoulder strap.
In general public usage, the terms ‘oxygen concentrators’ and ‘oxygen generators’ are sometimes used interchangeably, but other times are used where ‘concentrators’ tend to refer to the smaller, portable and battery-powered units in contrast to ‘generators,’ which describes all other size plants. Oxygen ‘bottles’ (and ‘tanks’) are pressurized storage vessels, and are typically heavy and have to be re-charged/replaced when empty. With portable oxygen concentrators, keeping them operative is more a matter of keeping the battery charged.
A number of additional features and objects will be apparent in connection with the following discussion of preferred embodiments and examples.